Thursday, April 30, 2015

In terms of both absolute tonnage and technical superiority, the US Navy is the world's largest and most advanced maritime military force. The capabilities of the US Navy are further enhanced and augmented by its military alliances such as NATO, in which the US plays a key role.

The following graphic from Naval Graphics shows every vessel serving in the US Navy as of April:

Early one morning in late February, a European investigator working in Kobani, the northern Syrian city that for months had been a battleground between Kurdish fighters and militants from the Islamic State, stepped outside the building where he was staying and saw something unusual. A Kurd on the street was carrying a long black assault rifle that the investigator thought was an American-made M-16.Many M-16s, the conventional wisdom goes, entered Syria after militants seized thousands of them from Iraq’s struggling security forces, which in turn had received the guns — along with armored vehicles, howitzers and warehouses’ worth of other equipment — from the Pentagon before American troops left the country in 2011. The militants’ abrupt possession of former American matériel was part of the battlefield turnabout last summer that led Julian E. Barnes, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, to tweet a proposed name for the Pentagon’s anti-militant bombing campaign: Operation Hey That’s My Humvee. And yet by this year, for all the attention the captured weapons had received, M-16s were seemingly uncommon in Syria. The expected large quantities had eluded researchers.

The two divisions, totaling nearly 22,000 men, were massed on the east bank of the river. With their superior numbers, arms and veteran officers, not to mention a long tradition of battlefield triumphs, they were confident of routing the ragtag band of rebels hiding in the woods and marshes on the other bank.

The signal was given, and the first artillery volley fired. The soldiers moved out, crossed the river—and marched into military history. Within three days, the two divisions were annihilated, and their commander’s head was severed and sent back across the lines as a message: Don’t come back.

This was not a battle from the worst days of the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. It was the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, nine years after the birth of Christ, in what is now northwestern Germany. It has been called “the battle that changed the course of history,” because it marked forever the limits of the Roman Empire. Latin would never take root east of the Rhine.

WNU Editor: This is a long read .... but the authors are asking questions that need to be asked. Read it all.

(Reuters) - Russia's military may be taking advantage of a recent lull in fighting in eastern Ukraine to lay the groundwork for a new military offensive, NATO's top commander told the U.S. Congress on Thursday.

U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the NATO supreme allied commander, said Russian forces had been seeking to "reset and reposition" while protecting battlefield gains, despite a fragile ceasefire agreed in February.

"Many of their actions are consistent with preparations for another offensive," Breedlove said.

Pressed during the hearing, Breedlove acknowledged he could not predict Moscow's next move but characterized its ongoing actions as "preparing, training and equipping to have the capacity to again take an offensive."

WNU Editor: NATO supreme allied commander General Breedlove has been asking for additional troops since assuming the post .... so why not scare Congress by saying that Russia will launch an invasion .... while not providing any proof.

More News On U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove Claiming That Russia Is Readying A New Ukraine Offensive

In a surprising turn, Kim Jong Un cancelled a trip to celebrate with Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. After months of high-level executions, it’s leaving some to wonder if he’ll ever take a trip and return as the Supreme Leader again.Today, the Kremlin announced that Kim Jong Un will not be attending next week’s events in Moscow commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. “He has decided to stay in Pyongyang,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “This decision is related to North Korea’s internal affairs.”The announcement was generally unexpected. Among those taken by surprise was South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, which had just issued a report to the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee on the topic. Yesterday, two lawmakers, including one from the ruling Saenuri Party, revealed the NIS believed that the North Korean leader was still planning on attending the victory celebration in the Russian capital.

Defence officials have said that US Navy ships will accompany US-flagged commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, to make sure they are not interfered with by Iran.Iranian patrol boats surrounded a US cargo ship in the strait on Friday.Earlier this week, Iranian naval ships reportedly fired warning shots near a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship before seizing it and its crew.The strait connects the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf.

Washington (CNN)CNN has learned that U.S. Navy warships will now accompany U.S.-flagged commercial vessels that pass through the Strait of Hormuz due to concerns that ships from Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps navy could try to seize a U.S. cargo ship.Pentagon officials provided clarification Thursday afternoon that not every ship will necessarily be accompanied by the Navy. But this is still a significant change in the U.S. military posture in the Strait.The classified plan was approved by the Pentagon earlier Thursday, according to a senior defense official.

The following is the second excerpt of the upcoming report from the Institute for the Study of War titled “An Army in All Corners — Assad’s Campaign Strategy in Syria.”The April 27th excerpt focused on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s goal to “preserve his rule in a post-war Syria through a negotiated ‘political solution.’” Written by ISW Syria Analyst Christopher Kozak, this study examines Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s strategy of maintaining armed outposts throughout the country to frame his claim to a united and contiguous post-war Syrian state.

The Syrian Army is facing its most serious challenges since the start of the Syrian Civil War. Fatigued, over-stretched, and losing the support of its base constituency, the Syrian Army is conceivably nearing the point of collapse. Major rebel offenses have taken control of the strategic cities of Idlib and Jisr al-Shegour in the north. Meanwhile, a second rebel offensive in the south has been steadily working its way towards Damascus, the capital. These steady rebel gains have demoralized the Syrian military, created fissures within the regime of president Bashar al-Assad, and force Damascus to accept greater foreign assistance in propping an ailing government, according to an April 30th New York Times report. Here's why the regime may be nearing its most serious crisis yet.

WNU Editor: If they are having trouble gaining recruits .... Assad regime struggles to find new military recruits (Al Arabiya) .... this war of attrition will ultimately force Assad to be completely dependent on Hezbollah and Iran .... an alliance that would only embolden the Sunni rebel groups and further escalate this sectarian civil war.

* Jaysh Al-Islam fights against government soldiers in Syrian city of Damascus* Made up of around '60 rebel factions', it also opposes Islamist groups like ISIS* Held the 'largest military parade witnessed' since start of the Syrian revolution* Saudi Arabia is 'funding the group with millions of dollars in arms and training'A militant group which opposes both ISIS and the Syrian regime has released a striking video showing off 1,700 troops, fleet of armoured tanks and special forces soldiers in an impressive military parade.These men form a small part of Jaysh Al-Islam - or Army of Islam - who reportedly command as many as 25,000 loyal fighters following the merger of up to 60 rebel factions inside Syria.Dozens of masked special units show off a range of skills including close-range combat in what the group claims is the 'largest military parade witnessed' since the dawn of the Syrian revolution in 2011.

Rebel fighters inspect a site damaged by what activists said was shelling by warplanes loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Jisr al-Shughour town, after the rebels took control of the area, April 26, 2015. (Reuters/Khalil Ashawi)

REYHANLI, Turkey (Reuters) - Hardline Islamists fighting side-by-side with groups backed by the United States have made gains in northern Syria in recent weeks while showing rare unity, which some fear may be short-lived.An Islamist alliance calling itself Army of Fatah, a reference to the conquests that spread Islam across the Middle East from the seventh century, has seized northwestern towns including the provincial capital Idlib from government forces.The alliance, which includes al-Qaeda's wing in Syria, known as the Nusra Front, and another hardline militant group, the Ahrar al-Sham movement, is edging closer to the coastal province of Latakia, President Bashar al-Assad's stronghold.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Farragut is shown in this undated photo operating in heavy seas in the Atlantic Ocean. It is now in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Iranian navy forced the container ship Maersk Tigris deeper into Iranian waters and is still holding it. (Aaron Chase/U.S. Navy via Reuters)

The United States was grappling Wednesday with a naval dilemma: How should the Navy respond to Iranian ships intercepting a civilian container ship in the Strait of Hormuz and holding if the vessel wasn’t flying the U.S. flag?The Maersk Tigris was flagged by the Marshall Islands when it was intercepted Tuesday, said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman. The tiny Pacific nation was seized by the U.S. military during World War II and gained independence in 1986. The government there signed a legal agreement with Washington in 1983 known as a Compact of Free Association that guides their relations, and requires the United States to respond militarily on behalf of the Marshall Islands when required.

WNU Editor: My suggestion to the U.S. Navy/Pentagon/White House is that they sort out their rules of engagement/policy sooner rather than later .... the Iranian navy is making their presence felt everywhere .... Iran says warships at entrance to key Yemen strait (AFP).

Thousands of Muscovites were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Russia’s latest military hardware rolling across the cobbles of Moscow’s iconic Red Square during the first night-time rehearsal ahead of Victory Day parade.Infantry from Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan practiced their performances in front of the public for the first time this year, ahead of Victory Day on May 9. Troops from other countries such as India, Mongolia, Serbia, and China were also present at the rehearsal.

It's springtime, which means blossoming flowers, Opening Day baseball, and the start of the Taliban's annual campaign to violently drive foreigners out of Afghanistan. But instead of calling it spring, NATO calls it "fighting season," which for the allied coalition is one of only two seasons in the country. (The other is "poppy season," when the Taliban and the poppy harvest make it clear that America's plans to counter narcotics in the country are going every bit as poorly as America's plans to counter the insurgency.)Spring is also when the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) releases one of his quarterly reports [pdf below]. That happened Wednesday, and it's only slightly less discouraging than the annual resumption of official Taliban hostilities.

Afghan National Army soldiers fire artillery during a battle with Taliban insurgents in Kunduz, Afghanistan, April 29, 2015. The U.S. military has sent fighter jets to Afghanistan's northern province of Kunduz, where Taliban insurgents have launched a major offensive and overrun government checkpoints close to the main city, U.S. and Afghan sources said. REUTERS/Stringer

(Reuters) - The Afghan army and police on Thursday failed to expel Taliban fighters from the outskirts of a besieged provincial capital as a seventh day of fierce fighting put pressure on national forces struggling largely without U.S. military backup.The Taliban push is a major test of the Afghan security forces trained by NATO, which ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in December, 13 years after the U.S.-backed military intervention that toppled the hard-line Islamist regime.The governor of the northern province of Kunduz vowed that the capital, Kunduz city, would not fall to the insurgents, but acknowledged that pushing back the Taliban was proving tough."It goes very slowly because we do not want defenseless civilians to suffer," said governor Mohammad Omar Safi.

Tehran (AFP) - Two Iranian destroyers, sent to the Gulf of Aden to protect commercial ships, have reached the entrance of Bab el-Mandab, a strategic strait between Yemen and Djibouti, Iran's navy said Thursday.In another sign of tensions between Gulf rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, the Saudi charge d'affaires was summoned to the foreign ministry in Tehran to hear a "strong protest" over Saudi military action which prevented an Iranian plane from landing in Sanaa.

Iraq’s besieged military was supposed to be flying front-line American F-16 fighters by now, joining other Arab forces in a daily air war against the Islamic State terrorist army controlling western and northern Iraq.Instead, prospective Iraqi pilots are anchored in the United States, still undergoing training. The Iraqi air force, such as it is, is confined to dated Russian attack jets — compliments of Iran — helicopters and missile-firing AC-208 Cessnas.While the war rages, there is no firm F-16 arrival date.

WNU Editor: You support logistics, radar, trained personnel, weapons, etc. .... the list is endless .... and then there is the issue of having trained pilots flying these aircraft .... Iraqis to get American F-16s – but can they fly them? (FOX News). If the Iraqis are flying F-16s later this year, I will be surprised.

BEIJING - China will hold joint naval drills with Russia in mid-May in the Mediterranean Sea, thefirst time the two countries will hold military exercises together in that part of the world, the Chinese Defense Ministry said on Thursday.China and Russia have held naval drills in Pacific waters since 2012. The May maneuvers come as the United States ramps up military cooperation with its allies in Asia in response to China's increasingly assertive pursuit of maritime territorial claims.A total of nine ships from the two countries will participate, including vessels China now has on anti-piracy patrols in waters off Somalia, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng told a monthly news briefing.

David Axe, Reuters:The Pentagon is buying the wrong ship, and it’s costing taxpayers billions
The United States will spend $585 billion on its armed forces in 2015 — the biggest military budget in the world by far. That’s just the Defense Department budget and doesn’t include the tens of billions of dollars that Washington spends on veterans, the purview of the Veterans Administration, or nuclear-weapons development, which falls under the Department of Energy.

There’s tremendous pressure in Congress to spend less. Though the Pentagon argues vehemently that budget cuts will harm national security, there are some fairly obvious places where defense cuts would not only save taxpayers’ money, they could also actually boost national security.
WNU Editor: A sobering assessment from David Axe .... read it all.

Thousands of people marked the 40th anniversary of end of the Vietnam War on Thursday with a massive military parade in the capital of Ho Chi Minh City.

More than 3 million Vietnamese and nearly 60,000 American troops were killed before Saigon, then the capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam, was captured by communist troops from the North on April 30, 1975.

North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the front gate of the presidential palace, before the troops hoisted the communist flag.

(Reuters) - Britain has informed a United Nations sanctions panel of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to two blacklisted firms, according to a confidential report by the panel seen by Reuters.The existence of such a network could add to Western concerns over whether Tehran can be trusted to adhere to a nuclear deal due by June 30 in which it would agree to restrict sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.Talks between six major powers and Tehran are approaching the final stages after they hammered out a preliminary agreement on April 2, with Iran committing to reduce the number of centrifuges it operates and other long-term nuclear limitations.

MOSCOW — Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, will not attend a celebration in Moscow in May of the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany, a top Russian official said on Thursday.Dmitri S. Peskov, President Vladimir V. Putin’s spokesman, said that Moscow had learned of Mr. Kim’s decision through “diplomatic channels,” and that the tentative plans were canceled because of “internal Korean affairs,” the Interfax news agency reported.Kremlin representatives have said several times this year that they expect the North Korean leader to attend.

* New Pentagon cybersecurity policy singles out China, among others, as threat* Country also dismisses concerns over parade to mark end of second world warChina’s defence ministry expressed concern on Thursday over the Pentagon’s updated cyber strategy, which stresses the US military’s ability to retaliate with cyber weapons, saying this would only worsen tension over internet security.The ministry also rebuffed a senior US official who cast doubt on China’s plans to hold a military parade in September to mark the end of the second world war.The Pentagon’s new cyber strategy presents a potentially far more muscular role for the US military’s cyber warriors than the Pentagon was willing to acknowledge in its last strategy rollouts in 2011, and singles out threats from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

More than 22,000 Burundians flee to Rwanda in a month amid violence provoked by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for third term as presidentThousands of people have crossed from Burundi into neighbouring Rwanda over the past week, fleeing intimidation by youth militia who are reportedly targeting rural areas as protests grip the capital, Bujumbura, over the president’s decision to stand for a third term in June’s presidential elections. According to reports, the authorities have cut mobile access to social media services such as WhatsApp and Facebook. Private radio stations have been shut down and youth militia are marking the homes of those opposed to the president. With protests in the capital ongoing, many fear more violence in a country that endured vicious ethnic violence during its 12-year civil war.

The US marines are currently testing out an unmanned spherical robot ball that can both swim in water and roll across most terrain in order to perform reconnaissance for armed forces.

GuardBot is the brain child of GuardBot Inc, a robotics firm based in Stamford, Connecticut in the US.

The idea for the robot was first conceived in 2004, and the autonomous robot was initially designed to go to Mars, but now the US Navy is interested in using robot as a guard in unknown territory, and to provide reconnaissance in warfare.

WNU Editor: If it works as promised this technology has the capacity to be a force multiplier that I am sure will be freeing up troops for other duties.

Japan’s identity as a pacifist nation, as defined by Article 9 of its constitution, is increasingly at odds with reality. The Japanese Naval Self-Defense Force is the second-most powerful naval force in the region, trailing only its close ally, the United States Navy. Japan has the seventh-largest defense budget in the world; its Ministry of Defense is the largest department in the entire Japanese government.Strategically, a strong Japanese military allows the United States — a close ally of Japan’s — to maintain distance from any military confrontation with China over territorial claims. It deprives China of the argument that the United States is neither a party to the dispute, nor native to the region. The problem for the United States lies in convincing allies, especially South Korea, that an increasingly robust Japanese military does not risk a return to Japanese imperialism.

WNU Editor: Japan has a long history .... and being a pacifist nation is not one of them. The key goal right for the U.S. now is to reassure it's allies in Asia that Japan's intentions are not aggressive .... and that there is nothing to be afraid of. My prediction .... this is not going to be a very hard sell.

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Members of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom used red poker chips as a symbol of global military spending, redistributing them as they saw fit. Photograph: Mir Grebäck von Melen/WILPF

Female peacemakers at a conference marking the centenary of the 1915 Congress of Women want money diverted away from weapons and into public services.There is no mistaking Anne Scott’s opinion of nuclear weapons. Standing outside a conference hall in The Hague on a chilly Tuesday lunchtime, the secretary of the Scottish branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) sported a bright blue T-shirt with the words “NHS Not Trident” defiantly emblazoned on the front.Scott, from Edinburgh, had taken a handful of red poker chips from a table and placed them on a tarpaulin, marked “health”, as a symbolic gesture of where she would like government spending on the military to be diverted.

"China represents and will remain the most significant competitor to the United States for decades to come. As such, the need for a more coherent U.S. response to increasing Chinese power is long overdue.”The words are dispassionate: “significant competitor”; not "enemy.’’ They are careful: "A more coherent response." That suggests that heretofore the U.S. response to increasing Chinese power has been at least somewhat coherent. But there should be no mistaking the significance of the above sentences. They are the first of many in a lengthy new report issued by the Council on Foreign Relations. For decades, the “council,” as the cognoscenti call it, has been the core of the American foreign policy establishment. When it comes to foreign affairs, it doesn't just regurgitate the conventional wisdom, it creates it.

WNU Editor: The Soviet Union was primarily a military power ... and they were "contained" in that matter. China is an economic power and a growing military one .... this puts them in a totally different category.

If Iran strikes a deal with the West, all sanctions will be lifted very quickly and there’s nothing the U.S. Congress can do to stop it, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a New York audience Wednesday.In a set of blustery and self-righteous remarks, Iran’s top diplomat assured the crowd at New York University that President Barack Obama would be compelled to stop enforcing sanctions only days after any nuclear agreement was signed and would have to figure out how to lift congressional sanctions on Iran within weeks, no matter what Congress has to say about it. He also said that any future president, even a Republican, would be compelled to stick that agreement.Zarif also took several shots at the U.S. Senate, just as it debated amendments to a bill designed to slow the lifting of sanctions against Iran and give Congress an oversight role on the deal.

WNU Editor: He is mocking the U.S. Congress .... and he is probably right that they cannot stop this nuclear deal.

About Me

I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.